


Let Us Go Then, You and I

by RookSacrifice



Series: It's Good To See You [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, BUT NOT IN A SAD WAY I PROMISE, Death, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, Prideshipping, Reincarnation, Romance, post-dsod
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27201556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RookSacrifice/pseuds/RookSacrifice
Summary: [oneshot] After Kaiba’s return from their fated duel in the afterlife, Atem pays him occasional visits throughout his life.
Relationships: Atem/Kaiba Seto
Series: It's Good To See You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1985782
Comments: 9
Kudos: 53





	Let Us Go Then, You and I

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Every prideship author is allowed one (1) post-DSOD fic and this is mine. This can absolutely be read as a stand alone and make perfect sense if you’re not a fan of scandalshipping, but I think the emotional impact is stronger if you read [I Dream of Rain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25275298) first. 
> 
> The dates are based on Kaiba’s birthday being October 25th, 1980.

> _If I thought that my reply were given_
> 
> _to anyone who might return to the world,_
> 
> _this flame would stand forever still;_
> 
> _but since never from this abyss_
> 
> _has anyone returned alive, if what I hear is true,_
> 
> _without fear of infamy I answer thee._
> 
> \--Dante’s _Inferno_

  
  
  


"Patient is a Japanese male, age eighteen, height approximately 185 centimeters, weight 70 kilograms, unresponsive, experiencing severe arrhythmia and second degree burns of unknown origin."

"He's one crispy critter, had to scoop and run. Not much we could do at the crash site..."

"That... ship? Is that what you call it? Just came outta nowhere. Fell right out of the sky..."

"God, I've never seen burns like these before..." 

"They... They look like radiation burns..."

"Where the fuck has this guy _been_?"

“SETO!!”

"We need to get these clothes off him."

"Abduct the right arm, start with removing the duel disk."

"Don't touch the metal, It could burn you too!" 

"Prep the ventilator, we're going through with draining the cardiac tamponade..."

“SETO!! SETO, WAKE UP!!!”

"Diastolic pressure dropping rapidly, face appears cyanotic."

"I NEED AN ADRENAL BOLUS STAT!" 

"I'm not picking up a distal pulse!"

"Christ, he's going into arrest. Ready the defibrillator." 

"Systolic numbers are still falling.”

"He's fading fast..."

"Prepare for cardiopulmonary resuscitation."

"Shock him."

"Sir… Mr. Kaiba has a formal DNR..."

"NO! YOU HAVE TO!! SETO!! SETO WAKE UP!!!"

"This is a legally binding document--" 

"HE DOESN'T GET TO CHOSE! HE DOESN'T GET TO LEAVE ME AGAIN! SETO!! WAKE UP!! SAVE HIM! HE'S NOT LEAVING! HE'S NOT-"

"I don't care who the fuck he is get this kid out of my goddamn OR!"

"Sir-"

"NOW!"

"Sir we're flatlining."

"Shock him again."

• 1 9 9 8 •

When Atem filtered back into his awareness, his eyes still burned from the rawness of tears shed for longer than his body was able to give. For a moment the whole of his being seemed untethered and lighter than a breeze before he was surprised to find himself sitting upright. A curious change, since last he remembered he'd been adrift on his own sorrows but certainly lying in bed. 

The air was stale and uncomfortably cold, laced with anxiety in a way the constructed paradise of Aaru never allowed for. His eyes fluttered open to half darkness, half impersonal, desaturated light with the setting diffused and out of focus. Some odor burned his nose and the subconscious part of his mind that tied smell to memory placed it as disinfectant. Atem blinked, blinked again to banish the haze and strained to bring the harsh greys into clarity. When the sharp lines of metal and windows and bedsheets all fell into frame, the pieces coalesced into a hospital room. The even whirring and beeps of a dozen machines was all that filled the silence and there was no light beyond the windows, marking the uninhabited hours of the morning.

Only one bed.   
Only one patient.  
Kaiba. 

Atem’s breath stuck at the realization and if he were not already sitting he might have collapsed under the shock. What was this but perhaps the cruelest of dreams? He had fallen asleep with the journal, and now his own mind saw fit to torture him further as though all he’d read had not been enough…

Wary of the illusion, he reached for Kaiba’s hand, the one that was free of tubes and wires and more lightly bandaged than his face and much of his body. His flesh was clammy and cold with a pallor beyond even the paleness he remembered. His pulse was thin, his breaths labored, but they were there. 

Alive.

The hallucination remained unwarped and unbroken, and Atem was forced to conclude that however he’d come to arrive by this paramnesia there was some root in reality. He squeezed the hand tighter but Kaiba remained unconscious, the breaths that passed his lips lighter than air. If he were awake, he’d snatch the hand away but as it was Atem allowed himself to trace the edges of every line in his palm. 

When the quiet at last became too overwhelming, he spoke. Mostly to himself and mostly just to fill it. 

“I suppose this isn’t the first time you’re here because of me,” He swallowed. “You know, before I left... I always thought we would have time...”

He stopped and watched, not anticipating a reply but hoping nonetheless.

“When I finally realized I was dead, when the truth of it sank in…” His fingers stilled, shaking too hard to continue the precise and delicate motions. “The pity and pain of my own departure filled me with slow resentment.”

His hand tightened again, squeezing the fingers that couldn’t squeeze back.

“I thought of our time here, wasted…” 

He sighed, mulling over his next admission before he made it.

“I was cruel to you, and you got nothing better from the rest of the world. That’s what made me angry.”

Atem furrowed his brow and watched Kaiba’s still face, unnaturally peaceful, thinking at least that--a feeling of anger--was something Kaiba might empathize with.

“I suppose as the dead we love the living in our own way, more tenderness than otherwise allowed, knowing well they will be changed when they return to us.”

Atem shifted in his seat under the weight of all the uncomfortable words and was distantly glad that if Kaiba could hear him, at least he couldn’t reply. 

“I have thoughts for you now, my own words of bereavement...” It was too late to stop, the warm prick of tears was already pooling again behind his eyes and blurring the body beside him. “I see how brilliant and rare you are and when you left after our duel, I cried out after you.”

Any composure that was left in his voice was shattered, and all the words fell out in choked and embarrassing tones laced with frustration.

“Why am I the one cursed to hold these memories of you? Where are you now, the one I played with on the sands when we were both younger?” 

He was talking louder than he should for so late at night, but he couldn’t be sure if it mattered, if anyone could hear him, even Kaiba.

“I remember you. Your hard-to-clasp hands, restless eyes, earth-dark hair stuck on your forehead…” 

Atem pulled the hand into his lap. 

“I remember you, wet from the river, savage as you ever were.”

He watched his face again, as if by wishing for it his eyes would open, shock blue through the narrow glare. 

“I know that death has that version of you,” Atem pressed the hand to his own heartbeat that fluttered erratically with the nervousness of the words. He tried to ignore the tears that finally slipped free. “That very likely you were glad to die, going out lonely and in bitterness with a heart burnt down to cinders. You were always too strong for life.”

His grip was so tight he worried it might set off one of the beeping machines. 

“For so long I’ve been angry that you didn’t remember. And now…” Atem could hardly bring himself to finish, but he’d made it this far. “I hope, if the grave has not conspired to hold you, that you’ve forgotten about all that.” 

He gave a rueful smile.

“And I hope, if I should walk down to the river, that one day I’ll find you there. Old blue eyes, dark hair dancing in the wind.” 

Kaiba still remained undisturbed and Atem allowed himself the indulgence of a light kiss to the back of his hand. The soft, pale skin glittered with the salted wetness of tears when he returned it to the sheets. 

“Maybe we can try again.”

• 2 0 0 2 • 

The slip came again, unpredictably. 

On the day of Wep-renpet, Atem was gathered with his court at the Temple of Anu for the Feast of Wagy. Mahad and Mana took on more than their share of preparations, making up for the absence of one missing priest. It was routine by now, of course, but Atem still insisted on leaving the seat at his right empty. Torches and candlelight danced inbetween faces at the table, but Atem wasn’t sure he had the energy to wait up for the first sunrise of the new year.

The jovial atmosphere carried through the hall and reached the hearts of everyone in attendance except for him. New year had become his least favorite holiday. It reminded him too much of Japan.

He plastered a smile on his face for his father and mother who eventually filtered out to attend their own feast, in another temple, in another time, with another court elsewhere in Aaru. Here, Atem was king. Here, it was his responsibility to entertain his guests and usher in the new beginning as Ra rose once again to ride his great chariot across the sky.

But his heart was not in it. When the merriment at last grew loud enough that no one was paying him any mind, he excused himself behind one of the great pillars towering in the hall. Pressing his back against the surface and his palms into his eyes, he blocked out the sounds of the festivities until they became so distant he couldn’t hear them at all. 

Atem felt the ground become cooler, the texture of the sandstone traded for something smoother. His own sniffling tears echoed hollowly through the temple as though it were far more vast and empty than he remembered only moments before. When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer there.

He was in a western style cathedral. 

His breath stuck at the brilliant sight of the light filtering through the stained glass windows, drifting in on sunbeams catching every dust mote like a star. High above, the flighty song of birds fluttered through the rafters. Atem only recalled being in a church once, with Yuugi, for the wedding of a friend. That one had been smaller and more intimate. Simpler. Lacking the splendid grandeur of worship of this labor of love for the gods. 

“It’s been too long, Kaiba. Is it truly so grating to visit an old friend?”

Atem spun around in shock at the sound of a familiar voice only to come face to face with… himself?

No. A different face, another version. The one from the mirror in Yugi’s tiny bathroom, with Yugi’s clothes, from Yugi’s life. If this was a dream, it was the most frighteningly realistic one he’d ever encountered. 

“I’m not Kaiba…” Atem said, brow furrowing in confusion. His counterpart laughed heartily, smirking and tilting his head to the side with a challenging ferocity. 

“It has been four years, seven months, sixteen hours, forty-seven minutes and twelve seconds since your last visit,” His doppelganger flashed another brilliant, flirtatious smile and the strands of his golden bangs tangled in the sunlight. “I’d say you owe me a duel.” 

“I’m not here to duel…” Atem wondered why he was here at all, wherever ‘here’ was, and circled his twin. He felt his skin crawl under his burning crimson gaze. Something about the eyes, the movements, was eerily unnatural. “Why did you call me Kaiba?”

The figure made the same minute, confused microexpression twice in immediate succession, reminding him of the glitch in Yugi’s scratched copy of Mortal Kombat. He, or _it,_ shifted posture, uncrossed its arms and softened its eyes. “Shall I call you ‘Seto’ today?”

“I’m not—” Atem stopped short of his argument. Clearly, logic was useless with whatever dark shade of himself he was met with. “You may, if you wish.”

The other Atem—not quite himself, not quite Yugi, and wholly unfamiliar—took a cautious step forward into his space. Its eyes were shallow pools with nothing left hidden beneath their surface. 

“Then you didn’t come to duel?” The timbre in its voice was deep and gentle this time. Arguably a poorly crafted facsimile of tenderness as though the notion itself were foreign to its creator. 

“I did not.” Atem repeated softly. He kept light on his feet, not trusting any sudden movements from his mirror. 

“Shall I enable realistic combat feedback?” 

Why would his double ask him about one of Kaiba’s duel disk settings, the one that removed the solid vision attack safeties, especially when he’d already declined a match? It blinked back patiently, awaiting his reply with its jacket billowing in a non-existent wind. A dream. Just a dream... perhaps the gods intended to make a revelation. He played along.

“Yes,” He stiffened with his quiet answer. 

“Alright, Seto.”

Atem was caught defenseless when too-firm fingers wound through his hair and stole an empty kiss against the altar.

• 2 0 0 7 • 

_“ATEM!!!”_

The deranged pounding from the other side of the door sounded close to setting the entire marvelously hewn piece to splintering, but the deadbolt held out. His personal guard had long ago scattered as he’d asked, leaving them alone. 

_“ATEM OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!”_

_“LEAVE!”_ He screamed back, hoarse voice cracking. Tears streamed down his face leaving dark streaks of kohl running down his cheeks. His nails dug deep into the skin of his arms, resisting the urge to peer out through the little crystal marble he’d stuck in the door to see out, knowing his resolve would crumble. _“GO HOME, KAIBA!”_

After another eternity of beating and wailing, he finally stopped. Atem could hear his exhausted body surrender against the wood with a soft thunk in defeat. 

“I… I can’t… I won’t.” The words were muffled through the separation.

“I won’t be an accomplice to your self-destruction,” Atem whispered. “Please...”

“I’m alone…” The admission was too frightened and vulnerable for Kaiba, and Atem was abruptly gutted by the memory of Set’s arrival in the palace when they were boys.

“There are still people who care about you. Yugi… Mokuba… You know this. Please. You must know this. You must. Tell me. Please.” Atem insisted. 

“It’s not enough,” Kaiba said. It was almost a confession, but not quite. 

“You are not alone! You are not. Ever. I swear it. Even now, every spare moment I am still with you in my heart,” He said, wishing the door would evaporate and take the guilt of the decision out of his hands. There was another hopeful fumbling with the golden knob and this time, Atem reached up to unlatch it. 

He picked himself up off the floor and stood tall in the antechamber, incense wafting through the room in feathered curls through the candle light. Kaiba at last let himself in and Atem watched his frame burning up into purple dust, destroying himself with every passing moment he chose to remain. He swallowed regretfully the memory of him in the hospital bed after his last visit nine years ago. 

A long moment passed in anxious silence where Kaiba didn’t look up from his feet, ashamed. He mumbled almost silently, and Atem wouldn’t have known what he said if he hadn’t been watching his lips move.

“I love you too, Seto…” he dusted off the older, more familiar name left unused for far too many years. Kaiba looked up, face lean and twisted in longing and hesitation shattered in a thousand scattered fragments. 

Kaiba’s lips were burning up with fever and the heat from his constant dissolution radiated even through his heavy coat. Atem pushed his sweat damp hair back off his brow and Kaiba buried his hands in his back as though fighting the ceaseless threat that at any moment they’d be ripped apart again. Nothing about the moment was soft, only hurried and desperate, fitting in as much lost time as could be crammed into the single blink of an eye. 

Kaiba was the one to pull back breathless, leaning his exhausted weight on Atem’s shoulders as he battled against the weakening of all his muscles. Atem met his eyes and watched him search his face in curiosity. He let him run his fingers over everything new. The thick hair grown out on his cheeks. Broad shoulders, at last filling out his frame. Hands firm and strong, kissed with the beginnings of sunspots. 

“You’re… older,” Kaiba looked thoroughly perplexed at the revelation and Atem chuckled under his breath at his confused expression. “I thought you wouldn’t age in your ‘paradise’?”

“I don’t have to,” Atem answered. “But I want to.”

“Why would anyone ever _want_ to get older?” Kaiba scoffed. Atem grew wistful at the notion and ran his hands through Kaiba’s hair again. He held his face in his hands, skin burning like hot coals under his palms.

“Because I never had the chance,” He whispered. Kaiba suddenly grew more somber and his face flashed with guilty realization. Atem pulled their lips together again, slower this time, savoring every turn and breath. 

“Go home, Seto,” He drew back only far enough to talk, foreheads still pressed together. Kaiba nodded in agreement.

“Just a little longer…” He pleaded, settling his hands on Atem’s waist and drawing thumbs down his stomach. He leaned into the touch.

“Alright. A little longer.”

• 2 0 1 5 • 

Time stretched out endless and glassy in all directions beneath a cloudless sky, unfettered by the storms of change. The days grew long then short then long again. Egrets and teals fled the river banks for northern safe harbor and always found their way home in the spring. The harvest was never meager. Even the burden of ruling was trite but light.

Atem was at rest, but rest never found him easily. Today was different. The laughter from Mana and Mahad carried distantly from the far bank and Atem let his feet hang in the cool water on either side of the skiff. He closed his eyes and listened only to the sounds, adrift on the lazy bobbling of the river, mind empty of anything but pure sensation with a heart lighter than air. He hummed softly, trailing his fingers over the cool surface of the water and exhaled. 

Peace was interrupted by the quiet patter of rain, not the feeling on his skin but only the sound. The distant roll of thunder and the fall of droplets against glass. Atem absently recognized he was no longer floating and his body sank against supple leather in place of papyrus reeds. 

He was lying in a room of steel and white, cold and minimalistic, mostly empty. An office. The lights were off, but the windows flooded the indifferent expanse with a sea of grey tones. A tiny tear-off calendar sat on the desk stuck on the date _October 25th._ A small quotation taunted its wisdom under the numbers, scribbled out with harsh pen marks but still legible:

> _If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger._
> 
> ― Emily Jane Brontë , Wuthering Heights

The sound of shouting started in the distance but crept closer from beyond the frosted glass door. Too soon, heavy footsteps were just outside the room and Atem pegged the voice as Kaiba’s familiar displeasure. The door slammed open and crashed shut, more shouting, the explosive clatter of a phone against stone with tiny shards of glass skittering to a stop under the sofa. 

Kaiba didn’t notice him, at least at first. He ran an unintelligible monologue under his breath and tossed his suit jacket over a chair back, leaving him in a charcoal waistcoat that matched the somber light. His hands worried at his thinning hair.

 _“Shit.”_ He muttered before finally looking up. His eyes narrowed in cold, furious disgust at the sight of Atem.

“I deleted you.” He bit out. He gave a harsh tug on his thin tunic before storming past him with a gruff shove of the shoulder. “I never programmed these clothes…”

“What?” Atem felt his heart sink at the words, unsure what they meant. 

“Is this Mokuba’s idea of a sick joke?” Kaiba typed furiously into his desktop, over and over, before howling in frustration, tears stinging behind his eyes. “Not today… Any day but today…”

“Seto, I--”

 _“SHUT UP!”_ He screamed, hands shaking over the keys. “END PROGRAM!”

“Seto, please…” Atem walked closer to the desk, unsure what to do and still disoriented from waking up in a strange new place. He reached out with an open gesture, watching Kaiba rapidly deteriorate into a quivering puddle of tears and rage. 

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” He snatched his hands out of reach, yelling louder than he had in the hall. “SUDO SWITCH USER ADMINISTRATOR OVERRIDE CODE 9S2M7F4B COMMAND SIGKILL FLAG 9!”

“Seto, It’s _me!”_ Atem roared, frantic in the face of Kaiba’s episode.

“END PROCESS!” Kaiba was ripping the whole office to shreds, tearing every wire from the outlets, off the walls, smashing thousands of dollars worth of solid vision projection equipment on his draconic rampage. “END PROCESS! KILL PROGRAM!”

At last when all the projectors were smashed and the entire room was in a state of violent upheaval, including Kaiba himself, Atem quietly tried to approach him the way he might a wounded animal.

“I told you once that I was nothing if not a man of faith,” He said and Kaiba’s eyes shot open in recognition of the words he’d said during his first visit beyond the veil. “Have some faith.”

“Oh, great, I’m hallucinating again…” Kaiba palmed his eyes and turned away, clamming in on himself and Atem followed, wrapping gentle arms around from behind to pull his hands away before pressing a feather light kiss on his shoulder. 

“Faith,” He repeated, guiding Kaiba to turn around and face him before dragging him down into a kiss. 

Kaiba surrendered immediately to frenzy, punctuating every spare breath with _Atem. Atem. Atem._

“It’s me. I’m here. It’s alright.” He echoed back each time, pinned first against the wall between the friction of fabric, and next the floor between the friction of skin. Atem turned them over and pulled back to look at Kaiba in the dull grey light of his office. He ran both hands reverently over the gnarled flesh of his chest healed from the burns he’d received in his crash. 

“I’m sorry…” He whispered. Kaiba caught his hand and threaded their fingers together.

“Don’t be…” He said and a defiant a smile spread over his face. “The old ones reminded me of times I’d rather forget. These are from times I want to remember.”

Atem smiled too before leaning down for another heated kiss, more tender and thoughtful this time. Kaiba sighed deeply, finally releasing the breath he’d been holding since he walked in the door as Atem littered his throat with sharp bites. 

“Why now?” Kaiba managed to croak out between moans. “Back then…” He sucked in a sharp breath and buried his nails deep in the flesh as Atem worked his way further down his chest. “...You came for Yugi. Why now? After everything…” His voice shook as though he were afraid of the answer. “Why?”

“You didn’t need me then,” Atem brushed a stray eyelash from off his cheek. “We’re older now.”

• 2 0 2 2 • 

Atem was exhausted. Sleep had been stalking him for longer than he cared to remember and it was no surprise that he was up late again now, pacing. His eyes dragged along with his feet, so he couldn’t say for certain when he’d ceased walking in the torch lit palace halls and began walking over the red runner carpet that was under him now. The slip was unexpected, but the setting was familiar. Atem twisted the knob on the door with a patched punch-hole he recalled was Mokuba’s where quiet sobs were leaking out from under the jam.

“What do you think you’re doing here?” Kaiba slurred. He was the only personal touch that remained in the spartan room with his back pressed up against the wall and his knees pulled to his chest and a bottle between his feet. All the lamps were shut off and the only light filtered in from the moon and the hallway. 

“It’s midnight,” Atem slid down the wall and mimicked his posture, letting his head fall on Kaiba’s shoulder. “I’m here to tend your failing fire.”

“I wanted to be alone,” He said, but the words weren’t so well articulated. 

“I don’t think that’s true,” Atem said gently, following his distant gaze to where it was fixed on the bed that once belonged to his brother. “Don’t go getting drunk, you won’t tear anything apart but yourself.”

Atem took the glass out of his hand and rethreaded the fingers through his own instead. 

“I spent all this time trying to get back what I lost and the whole time there was more going right out the door,” Kaiba still didn’t tear his eyes away from the bed. “Maybe I should tie a tourniquet on it…”

“You couldn’t keep him here, you know that.” Atem gave his hand a small squeeze. “Where is he now?”

“With his wife. They have a son.”

“I’m sure you’re a wonderful uncle,” He tried to assure him that _gone_ wasn’t always the same as _forgotten_ , but it was clear that Kaiba saw it as moving on while he remained in place. 

“It feels like my whole life led only to one moment and every one after it led nowhere…” Kaiba’s cheeks looked wet in the low light and Atem pretended not to notice. “Do you think I’m like the rest of them after all?”

“Of course not,” Kaiba couldn’t have been like other people if he tried. He fought the urge to laugh at that, but it would have been uncouth. Instead, Atem let go of his hand to wrap his arm around his back. “There’s still time. It was never like you to confuse a single failure with the final defeat.”

“Well I’m not much like myself anymore…” Kaiba started and Atem left room for him to finish the thought. The mansion was empty now, and the only thing he could hear in the pause was his uneven breaths from holding back heavier tears. 

“I think I want to die. I want to die violently instead of fading out sentimentally.”

“Do you now?” Atem knew Kaiba’s dramatics well enough to recognize it was more of a feeling than a threat. 

“I hate sentimentality.”

Atem wanted to ask why they were sitting on the floor of Mokuba’s room then, or why he kept his old deck, or why he still lived in this terrible house, or any number of things but thought it best to chart a different tack. 

“I assure you it’s not so grand as you imagine...” He whispered.

“If _leaving_ isn’t so _grand_ then why does everyone do it? Everyone _leaves_ me!” The words cut deep because they were true. 

“It’s not that simple,” Atem’s words were shaky and quiet. “Nobody wants to be here, but nobody wants to leave either.”

There was another long and uncomfortable silence. 

“You left me.”

“I know. I know I did, and I’m sorry.” Atem shifted to pull Kaiba’s head down against his chest. It didn’t fix anything, but that’s all he had. “But I will always come back to you.”

“Is that some kind of challenge?” 

“It’s a promise.”

Kaiba finally gave up on the posturing and cried until the linen of Atem’s tunic was soaked through. 

• 2 0 3 0 • 

It was a long time before the next occasion Atem happened to return, and when he did they were afforded more time but less energy as age is often wont to provide. There had as always been a long night, but not so long as the younger ones. Afterward, the cotton softness of the morning alighted with a lazy peace and a contentment that ran deeper than passion and dared to curl once about the room before nodding off to sleep again.

Atem laid on his back, holding Kaiba’s perpetually chilly form against his chest, arms engulfing him but careful not to suppress his light breathing. When at last the sun grew too strong to ignore, he sensed Kaiba’s anxious stirring and tightened his grip before leaning forward to murmur a soft good morning. 

“Happy birthday, Seto,” He couldn’t fight the curl of his lips against Kaiba's ear because he meant it.

“I don’t have birthdays anymore.” He could hardly make out the grumbled reply muffled into his neck while Kaiba buried his eyes from the light of day, defiantly ignoring the dawn. Atem traced lazy patterns down the grooves in his shoulders, lulling him back into easy breathing. 

“But this is an important one, fift--”

“Don’t say it…” He groaned in reply. Atem hummed softly, one arm pinning Kaiba tighter against him and the other never stilling in it’s gentle movements. Thin fingers wound themselves tightly into his hair and Atem could sense it was too early to leave Kaiba plagued by his own nervous thoughts. He resolved to distract him. 

“It’s hard to believe it’s been more than thirty years now and still, after so long…” Atem felt Kaiba’s tension ebbing away again with the steady drone of his words. “It’s still a bit odd to have my memories back.”

He let out an easy sigh and paused for a long moment. Kaiba shifted his weight and tightened his fingers with a small tug in his hair as if to say _go on._ Atem had learned long ago, in the early days of their rivalry, that sometimes all Kaiba needed to steady himself was to hear his voice. To know he wasn’t alone. The words were inconsequential. 

“Sometimes, when I was still a boy, I would follow the servants from the palace down to the market by the harbor. I would wear my worst clothes and mingle with the other children, all tattered rags and bright faces. No one ever knew it was me.” 

Atem drew a slow finger down the back of Kaiba’s bicep the way he knew always made him shiver.

“Kids, they have this way of never noticing anything unusual but always finding the unusual in all the most ordinary things.”

A soft hum of acknowledgement escaped Kaiba’s throat as he walked a careful tightrope between feigning near-sleep and leaning into the touch. 

“Anyway, we were playing in the street and a group of soldiers by the stalls were watching this beautiful woman walk by—well, I suppose she was beautiful, I don’t remember what she looked like. But the soldiers were all saying ‘Look, look! Gods, she’s so sexy.’

“Later on I was busy harassing the fisherman. There had been this great catch of tilapia and everyone on the dock was drawing up their nets and filling these enormous woven baskets. I was running around, trying to wrangle some slippery fish and generally being a nuisance. The old men yelled at me to stay put and wouldn’t let me help.”

Atem tentatively slid down the sheets, exposing Kaiba’s pale skin to the gentle warmth of the morning sunlight and providing a broader canvas for his soft caress. 

“So I walked over to the baskets with them already arranged and the sleek, iridescent fish looked as though they’d been cast from chrome and in the sunlight their scales turned a piercing blue when they caught the sky and I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

He lifted his hand to pet Kaiba’s hair. It was softer and thinner now, no doubt from years of stress, but it retained its chestnut color and a faint, heady turpenoid aroma. His weight rose and fell on his chest, bobbing like a ship on the sea with each breath. 

“Looking back, I know it’s a bit of sick fascination to be so bewitched by something gasping for air, but I didn’t notice that. I guess I was smitten with some of that peculiar childlike wisdom because I stroked them and whispered over and over ‘sexy, sexy, sexy.’”

“ _What?!_ ” The story finally caught Kaiba’s attention and he snapped up, brow wrinkled in confusion. Atem let out a bout of rolling laughter from deep in his stomach. 

“I’d never heard the word before! I didn’t know what it meant! I thought it was another word for pretty. I’m a bit abashed now, but that’s why I’m telling the story.” Atem cupped Kaiba’s cheeks in his calloused palms and gave a willy grin. “I suppose it says something about my sense of aesthetics.”

“All it means is you were a dumb kid,” Kaiba countered, but his own lips curled up at the edges. 

Atem searched his narrowed eyes. Their color had lost some sharpness and lightened to a softer, stormier blue-grey flanked with tiny crows feet. He ran his thumbs over the corners. He felt the brush of his lashes as his eyes fluttered shut while he memorized the lines.

“Stop touching them or I’ll have to get Botox,” Kaiba sneered, trying to bury his face where it couldn’t be seen. 

“What’s Botox?” Atem held him in place with steady hands.

“Never mind…”

“I like them,” Atem said. He made a rueful expression. “It means you’ve been smiling when I can’t be here to see.” 

Kaiba let out a sniffled huff, neither argument nor affirmation, and propped his weight up on one elbow to make his own wordless survey of Atem’s body.

His thin fingers toyed with the feathered bangs, once golden honey now fading out to platinum white, some small streaks even finding their way into the black here and there. His hands trailed down to a torso that was less willowy, more the thick, stocky trunk of an old oak tree with arms like solid branches. His skin was darkened and leathered from years spent in the sun and marked with unruly black hair and storied scars both old and new. He placed his chilly palm over one uniquely gnarled mark near his waist, eliciting a ticklish twitch. 

“I got that falling off my horse. She clipped me with her hoof, broke my rib…” Atem spoke about the injury with no hint of anything but fond gentleness. “She didn’t mean it. She was just scared.”

“You ride horses.” Kaiba said.

“It’s not like we have cars,” Atem chuckled at his obvious observation. “Technically, the palace has a whole stable, but I have two favorites.” 

He rested one hand over Kaiba’s still on the scar.

“The one who did this, Sa-ash, that’s her nickname. It means ‘river goose’ because she has a clogged nose and her whiny sounds more like a quack. And my black Arabian stallion, Al-yataeab. I won him in a bet off a traveler from the east.”

“I’d like to see them,” Kaiba whispered.

“I’d like that too.”

 _I’ll show them to you someday._ Atem wanted to say, but it hardly seemed appropriate to make promises he wasn’t sure he could keep.

The atmosphere palpably soured and took on an air of bittersweetness instead. Atem pulled Kaiba back again, subconsciously wrapping his arms even tighter around him until he could hardly take in a breath for the constriction. He relaxed into it, making no move to suggest it was unwelcome. 

“You’re not going to find someone else?” Atem asked quietly, right against his cheek. “You… I… I’d understand, if you did.” 

“Too old...” Kaiba answered, but the tone was obviously perfunctory as though the thought had never even crossed his mind. The cold of Kaiba’s nose pressed up under the lobe of his ear. 

“That’s not true, you’re not old...” Atem said. “You know what they say, there’s plenty of fish in the sea.”

“I prefer the one in the basket,” Kaiba whispered and sucked a welt into the tender skin where his nose had been. 

Atem flipped him over on his back and swallowed his naked smirk in a long and lazy kiss.

• 2 0 4 3 • 

“It’s getting late,” Atem had been out on the balcony staring up at the stars when the small pricks of silver warmed to the distant glow of streetlights and windows, a view of Domino far removed. He turned from the window to find Kaiba, still hunched over his desk in permanently slumped posture. “You should turn in for the night. Work will be there tomorrow.”

“Hnnn…” Kaiba groaned in his direction but didn’t lift his eyes from the wiring in his work. A soldering iron burned absently to the side. His hands couldn’t quite hold still enough anymore to thread the copper tines to the right slot on the breadboard. Frustrated and squinting through his glasses, he struggled to force them into place. 

“There’s not a whole lot of tomorrow left,” Kaiba mumbled, mostly to his work. The building was quiet and half the lights in the room were off, leaving him illuminated in the warm glow of an old desk lamp. 

“There’s enough,” Atem smiled and pulled up one of the occasional chairs beside him, lovingly following every move of his fingers with his eyes. Kaiba’s movements grew jerkier and more forceful, irked with his own body’s inability to obey his commands. Atem settled his own weathered, calloused hand over his to stop them and pulled the little board away. 

“Some things,” Atem started, pinching a black wire he’d watched him struggling with between thick fingers. “Are only so difficult because we try to force them when they require a gentler touch.” He held his hand steady against the table and slotted the stripped end into place with a smooth, slow movement. He slipped it back to Kaiba who nodded in silent approval before flipping it over to start soldering. Atem watched patiently while he melted delicate plops of lead into place. 

“Take a walk with me,” He placed a soft hand on his knee under the desk. “The evening is warm.”

“I’m not finished yet,” Kaiba didn’t look up, but knit their fingers together while he pondered a stack of printed schematics.

Atem continued to wait quietly, peacefulness painting his face at the private intimacy of observing Kaiba in his element. He whistled quietly on the exhale, a tuneless melody, lost in concentration on his work. 

“Seto…” He whispered softly into his ear and stroked his thigh to sooth. “Not everything will be here tomorrow.” 

Kaiba picked at the edge of the pages until the corner of the paper curled up around his finger. He didn’t say anything. 

“Take a walk with me,” Atem asked again, this time pushing the schematics across the desk and out of view. He placed his hand on his cheek and turned his face to meet his, planting a chaste kiss on his lips. Kaiba hummed in quiet contentment and followed when he pulled back. 

“Alright,” He relented, flicking out the lamp and unplugging the soldering iron as he stood up. He refastened the button on his suit and shuffled Atem out the door with a hand on his back. 

• 2 0 5 7 • 

“Check.” 

“Hnnn.” Kaiba grumbled to himself in his usual cantankerous way, pondering the trap Atem had sprung on the board. Atem on the other hand let out a long, deep sigh, leaning back into his seat and enjoying the breeze in the shade of the mansion garden. It was reminiscent of his own courtyard in the palace but there was a subtle something, a quality of air, that played upon his heart in a novel way. 

The stone path leading to the wrought-iron table was made of concrete circles bearing tiny pressed-in hand-prints that grew to bigger ones as they neared the patio. The kanji for ‘Seto’ and ‘Noah’ were finger painted into the cement when wet and the poor handwriting was now ineffaceable. Not ‘Big Seto’ of course, but ‘Little Seto,’ Mokuba’s Seto. Who, admittedly, would balk at being called _little_ now that he’d inherited his role as the face of Kaiba Corp. 

Kaiba sacrificed his bishop as payment to escape the current quagmire. As usual when he played black, he was on track to lose to Atem. As usual when it came to losing to Atem, he didn’t seem to mind. 

“I like to drink more than I used to,” He leaned back into his chair, taking a sip of wine and turning the glass, watching the red liquid turn translucent in the evening light. He gave Atem endless time to make his rebuttal.

“I’ve drank beer since I was ten,” Atem smiled daringly over the pieces, twisting the black hair on his chin around his finger, a gesture that had come to replace chewing thoughtfully on his thumb. “Perhaps in your case, it’s good for you. For your temperament.”

“Egyptians…” Kaiba schooled his expression in a practiced, contrary scowl that Atem could see right through. “I don’t know… anyway, I drink more.”

He started to reach for his tablet, but Atem picked it up first and tossed it carelessly onto the lawn. 

"Sorry…" Kaiba sighed.

"What for?" Atem had a way of letting things go without letting Kaiba refuse to admit to them. 

"I hope you don’t mind, I…" He could only bring himself to be so open, even now. "I keep running my mouth about business."

“No, not at all. Your business is with family. I like hearing about your family,” Atem smiled at first before his expression grew somber and the lines cut deep in his face. “I... Well, I can get older but… That’s the one thing…”

“I know.” Kaiba said softly. The spring breeze picked up and Atem shivered, relishing the rare feeling of being a touch uncomfortable. He’d forgotten all about moving his next piece.

“How’s Seto? I saw the pictures on the mantle,” He steered the conversation back to a happier direction. “It must make Mokuba mad, he looks more like you every day.”

“Noah takes after him,” Kaiba said. He took another sip from his glass, staring out into his garden and suppressing a proud smile. “Seto’s smarter than me.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say that about anyone!” Atem rolled with warm laughter from deep in his chest and even Kaiba chuckled quietly to himself. He seemed to remember something suddenly at the thought of Seto, probably about work despite his formal retirement. 

“I need to arrange to have the engineering team--”

“It’s been taken care of, your staff called over lunch,” Atem didn’t pick at his forgetfulness any further. 

“That’s right…” Kaiba shook his head as though he were chastising himself. His face turned down in a dissatisfied scowl and he gave a gruff sniff and turned back to the board. “That’s right.” 

“...he can handle it,” Atem said gently, sliding one leg until knees brushed under the table. Kaiba leaned subtly into the contact and his eyes wandered over the pieces, trying to recall where they’d left off.

“I know. I… I spent my whole life trying not to be careless. Mokuba… Mokuba can be careless but not me,” His eyebrows knit together, one particularly deepset line running between them. He settled for inching a pawn forward towards the back row. “He and I… We went through so much. I never wanted that for him.” 

Atem hummed softly in agreement, waiting for him to finish his thoughts before going forward with their game. Kaiba wrung the kinks out of his swollen knuckles with a series of small cracking sounds. 

“I don’t want that for Seto and Noah either. I worked my whole life to take care of them, I won't apologize. I refused to be a fool, to be a pawn on someone else’s board and I… I didn’t always make the best choices but I don’t apologize for anything I did for Mokuba. That’s my life.” 

“You don’t have anything left to apologize for,” Atem said.

The evening was drawing to a close and the long shadows of trees beyond the garden wall stretched out languidly over the grass and the chess board and Kaiba’s face. 

“I wanted, when the time came… I wanted them to be the ones moving the pieces. There wasn’t enough time, never enough time…”

Even in the twilight, the purple heads of crocuses and verdant buds of spring could be seen in every corner of the terrace.

“It's a beautiful garden, Seto. You don't have to keep watering it. The rain will do its job.”

• 2 0 6 5 • 

The time was drawing near, there could be no mistaking it. Kisara had been the first to know, of course. Had taken her dragon form and flown off weeks ago. Now it was Atem’s turn. He passed three days in mourning. He wept and fasted, wept and prayed. As he had one night long ago with the journal, he finally sobbed himself empty of tears until he was claimed by dreamless sleep. 

He woke up with the dawn on the fourth day to the soft, warm light of the sun filtering in through sheer blinds. His body felt tired when he came to, but there was never a time anymore when it didn’t. Every muscle, every bone had been worn through to the end of its mileage and his breath sloughed out as he shifted his form against the discomfort of the wooden chair. 

Atem couldn’t help but recall a similar journey with a similar sight, only more relaxed this time. The morning light warmed the room and there was no harsh metal bed frames or beeping machines. 

Only blankets.  
Only Seto.

Mokuba had left a note by the bedside that he would be back for breakfast, signed with a smiley face. There was a tall vase of sunflowers, defiantly refusing to wilt, with a tiny purple card from Yuugi. Atem shuffled in his seat again, trying to get himself comfortable, but the noise was apparently loud enough to wake Kaiba. He stirred beside him.

“Good Morning,” Atem wasn’t quite sure what else to say. “Can I get you anything?” 

“A duel,” Kaiba’s voice was weak, but even if his body was failing him his spirit refused.

“Of all the times to be ridiculous, Seto, of all the times to play the fool…” Atem chuckled and let out a light cough with it. “You’ve never changed.”

“Not ridiculous,” Kaiba breathed.

“Next time…”

They sat together in comfortable silence for a long while, Kaiba’s shallow breathing the only sound. It was nice.

“What’s it like?” Kaiba said at last, words as thin as mountain air. Atem briefly debated whether to answer, but he decided after everything that he owed him one. 

“I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,” Atem picked up his wrinkled hand to trace the lines, old and new, marking his palm. “Felt the gods’ claws in my tunic tails, seen the eternal darkness staring back at me…”

“…and?” Kaiba forced the word out when Atem was quiet for a beat too long. 

“In short? I was afraid,” He made the admission with a dark expression and without a hint of shame. His deep voice was soothing though with his next words. “You don’t have to be.”

Kaiba was clearly too exhausted to speak and merely nodded subtly and that was all the evidence he could provide that he was still listening. 

“You will come back to me,” Atem’s eyes stung with tears and his mouth turned up in a nostalgic smile. 

“Is that an order, _your majesty?”_ Kaiba’s eyes were closed and the words barely escaped, but his fingers made a small twitch of acknowledgement in Atem’s grip. 

“It’s a promise,” He pressed his lips to the back of his hand and rested it back by his side but didn’t have the heart to let go. Kaiba looked quite content with that answer and relaxed out of the tension he woke up with. Atem, exhausted too, rested his own head forward against the pillow. He whispered old stories and reassurances into his ear until Kaiba’s hand stopped holding back. 

• • • • • 

Set couldn’t place how long he’d been laying there or when he noticed the quiet rustling of a warm breeze rising through the rushes or the familiar smell of river water filling his nose. He opted to linger a moment longer, exhausted and lazy, beneath the cloudless blue sky. It was like rousing from a strange and confusing dream and he rested, reveling in the comforting sense of the world resettling on its proper axis. 

He fell back on his habit of absently running through his to do list for the day. Forward the synchro summon prototype schematics to Mokuba. Meet with Mahad _(ugh)_ to prepare sacrifices for The Epagomenae. Review the November expense reports for Kaibaland California. Place the order for 7000 cubits of sandstone for the west wall repairs.

Something was… _off_ about the list in an obvious but unplaceable way. It was somehow unimportant. 

_“Kaiba!”_

Set’s lips turned up in anticipation at the familiar sound of the pharaoh’s voice calling his name. He heard him sloshing through the water and field of reeds beside the river. He lay still and feigned sleep, letting himself be found. 

_“Seetttoooo!”_

A moment later, Set felt a cool shadow pass over his figure and drops of river water rain on his smooth, sun-warmed skin. The pharaoh shook his shoulders and he stayed limp, fighting to keep himself from smiling. Finally, Atem gave up on the first strategy and teasingly danced his lips over his. Set broke composure, and heatedly pulled their faces together, swallowing lips and the faint remains of Nile water dripping from Atem’s hair. 

_“Mine.”_ He said, pulling back to press their foreheads together.

“Did you have a nice time?” Atem asked. Set let his eyes flutter open to find the pharaoh's face, young and tan and bright and _perfect._ Just as he remembered. “Come on, Kisara is already at the palace.”

“What’s she waiting for?” 

“You owe me a duel!” The pharaoh managed to yank him up to his feet despite his smaller frame. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember…” 

Set felt the wind pick up again, catching his long hair, and contentment settled in his chest. 

“How could I forget?”

**Author's Note:**

> Did I even write prideshipping if Kaiba and Atem don’t play chess?
> 
> Title is from my favorite poem: [The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock) by T.S. Eliot [Siken fans will love this one]
> 
> ♡ Please leave your thoughts in the comments, I'm always striving to improve my writing! ♡
> 
>  _Formerly known as **talladeganights**_  
>  Find me on Tumblr: [RookSacrifice](https://rooksacrifice.tumblr.com/) (main) and [atembomb](https://atembomb.tumblr.com/) (Yu-Gi-Oh!)  
> Find me on Twitter: [@RookSacrifice](https://twitter.com/RookSacrifice)  
> Roast me in the [Prideshipping Discord](https://discord.com/invite/rdqAndnaB2)


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